


Making Amends

by SoberFrost



Category: Young Justice (Cartoon), Young Justice - All Media Types
Genre: Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Father-Daughter Relationship, Gen, Sportsmaster Trying to Be a Good Dad For Once
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-02
Updated: 2020-07-02
Packaged: 2021-03-04 23:48:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,715
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25024927
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SoberFrost/pseuds/SoberFrost
Summary: Sportsmaster has made a lot of mistakes when it comes to his kids. Now he's trying to rectify some of those mistakes. Post Season 2.
Relationships: Artemis Crock & Lawrence Crock, Lawrence Crock & Jade Nguyen, Lawrence Crock/Paula Crock
Comments: 4
Kudos: 14





	Making Amends

**Author's Note:**

> While I was rewatching Young Justice I had the brief idea that while Sportsmaster is very clearly a dickhead, maybe he still cares about his kids. Kind of like how we see Jade cares about Artemis when it really matters. Unfortunately, there isn't really much in the show to back my idea up, so I wrote this instead.
> 
> Disclaimer: I don't own Young Justice, just my ideas.

**Making Amends**

Lawrence Crock sat on a park bench overlooking a pond. Gone was the hockey mask that usually covered his face, as well as the battle armor he wore so often it had become second skin. Instead, the large man looked almost pedestrian in an overcoat, jeans and sports cap. To a passerby, he looked like an abnormally fit, tall, but relatively normal middle aged man.

Probably for the best that they didn't know better.

He took a deep breath, his eyes scanning the crowd for the person he was looking to meet. Lawrence was not an easy man to make nervous. He'd seen the worst life had to throw, and more than a few time's he'd killed whatever, or whomever, it was. But if any of the park-goers had been a metahuman with super hearing, they would have heard the elevated heart rate coming from the large man, who had not moved from his spot on the bench for nearly forty minutes. Or the way he had been grinding his teeth with increasing frequency over the same time period.

The meet was supposed to happen a half an hour ago, and every extra minute he sat here was an added risk of being captured by law enforcement, by the Justice League, or even by the assortment of enemies he'd built. Under any other circumstances, he would have abandoned ship a long time ago. But today's mission was too important.

His eyes perked up slightly when he saw who he was meeting. Athletic build, long blonde hair, withering grey eyes that had already locked onto his presence. In all honestly, he was surprised she showed up. He temporarily scanned the crowd, looking for other members of the junior justice league.

No sign of them, and Artemis, despite her glare, was walking up to him in civvies and without a bow aimed at a critical organ. Both were a first for some years now.

He acknowledged her arrival at the bench with the nod of a cap. "Surprised you showed."

"Surprised you called."

Curt, like all their conversations. He didn't remember the last time he'd had a truly end to end pleasant conversation with his younger daughter that lasted longer than a few seconds. At least, not since she'd become a teenager.

"Maybe I just wanted to see my baby girl."

Artemis snorted, as if to say _Yea right._

"It's not that hard to believe."

No response. The two sat in silence for some minutes, both staring intently ahead at the pond. Pedestrians passing by would have assumed they were complete strangers, if not for the inherent familial resemblance etched into their facial structures. Finally, Lawrence spoke, figuring that he since he initiated the meeting, he should probably make sure it goes somewhere.

"I-I'm sorry about your boyfriend. I heard from your mother-"

 _"Don't._ " The word came out came out low, like a threat instead of an order. "Don't talk about him." Lawrence recognized the raw undertone in them. A small part of him, the part of him that still had some morsels of a fatherly instinct, wanted to reach out and hug his baby girl.

But he knew better, so he stood down and switched directions.

"Everything that's happened over the last few months, it's made me think."

Think. He hadn't done much thinking the last few months, not when he'd thought his youngest daughter had died at the hands Black Manta's spawn. He'd been fueled by a rage he didn't know was possible, the singular desire of vengeance keeping him up at night. He'd masked it as annoyance at the damage to cred, only allowing his hurt to show around his wife.

When he found out that Artemis was alive, he collapsed in a heap of relief the moment he was alone. When he could finally compose himself, he'd gone to Gotham and confronted Paula about it, about keeping it a secret from him because _how could she?_ To his great shock, she had also been left out of the loop.

Later on that night, they both remarked that Artemis had inherited more than just her hair color from her father.

"I haven't been a good person, and I certainly haven't been a good dad." Another scoff from Artemis, but he chose to ignore it. "I am trying, would like for you to let me try to, change that. To at least be better."

"You walked out on us _Dad_ ," Artemis responded, and she referenced his father-status as if the word itself was a slur straight from the 1920s.

"I didn't walk out, your mother kicked me out." Lawrence knew he shouldn't get defensive, that this was not the time to start arguing semantics. But pride had always been a problem of his, one that only Paula had ever really been able to handle with ease.

"You turned your back on us, Dad. You walked out on Mom. You chose the life over us!"

"I didn't have a choice."

"The hell you didn't!"

"I didn't have a choice!" he repeated.

"Unbelievable," she responded, her voice going lower but her face hiding most of the anger she felt. They weren't trying to attract unwanted attention, and Lawrence had taught his kids how to mask their emotions well. "Unbelievable! You think after all this, that I'm just going to forget what you did. Making Jade leave, trying to force me against my own team, trying to _kill_ all of my friends?"

Lawrence had to physically bite down on the inside of lip so as to force himself to calm down for a few seconds before answering. A trick Paula had taught him to help deal with the tantrums that his daughters had loved to throw in their toddler years.

Instead, he kept his voice level and calm, turning to his daughter and maintaining eye contact with her as he explained. "Your mother and I made enemies Artemis. I had to stick around in The Life to make sure that they wouldn't get any ideas."

"Those enemies made you pit Jade and I against each other in every practice drill against the sun? Made you train us until we could barely breath and our bruises had bruises? Made you forget how to be any semblance of a father?" Artemis maintained eye contact with him, but her voice was thready, filled with emotion. It was obvious she had been holding these words in for quite some time.

He wanted to point out that it had been their mother who had started the training, and that he'd only ratcheted it up to such high intensity after she'd been put in prison, when he went to sleep every night unsure if both his children would be alive when he woke up. He wanted to point out that it was his training that gave her the skills to do what she did with her hero friends.

Lawrence Crock wanted to say many things, but he knew how to read a room. "Like I said, I made mistakes. A lot of them. Big mistakes baby girl. But I'm trying to make up for it."

Artemis broke eye contact at that, going back to the staring at the pond. She had probably expected him to argue, as was his way, but it only took her a few seconds to process her next question.

"And Jade? You trying to 'make things right' with her too?"

Ah yes, his eldest daughter. The daughter that had most resembled his wife, in more ways than just appearance. In a different time, she had been his rock. The daughter he could trust to look after her little sister. The daughter he pushed hardest. The one that he had relied on to take care of her younger sister and fill the gaping hole that their mother's imprisonment had formed in the household.

But she had been a child, and he had asked too much of her.

He drove her so far away that she used the skills her parents taught her and disappeared under the guise of night. By the time he had found her, the Shadows had already made plans for the eldest daughter of the legendary Huntress. And Jade had been so thoroughly repulsed by her father that she changed her last name to her mother's maiden name.

"I made mistakes with her too, but I'm working on rectifying them."

Another snort from Artemis. "I'll believe that when I see it."

Her skepticism was well placed. Jade made no attempt to hide her overwhelming disdain, if not outright hate, for her father. But when she had gotten pregnant with Lian, it was Lawrence who tracked her down to the parking lot of an abortion clinic. _He_ was the one who sat there with her for hours until she silently decided to keep her unborn child. Who made sure she was in a secure safe house, and dispensed a surprisingly large amount of useful pregnancy advice.

She hadn't accepted his help happily, but with her husband a shell of a man, she'd accepted it nonetheless, on the condition that he didn't tell the rest of the family.

Yes, he still saw the resentment in his eldest daughters' eyes when she looked at him. Too many years had gone by, the sins of the father too great. But he figured if she could tolerate him for nine months, then maybe they could reach something of a truce. But that day would come when it came.

"Artemis, I'm not good at this..."

"You're not good at a lot of things when it comes to family." The elder Crock physically flinched at that.

"Yea. 'Pose I deserve that one."

"Baby girl…" He sighed. "I've never been good at this, but when you died…It was like a piece of me died. We aren't a normal family Artemis, but let's face it, being normal was never a Crock/Nguyen strong suit. I never stopped talking to your mother. Yea she kicked me out, so what? She's still my wife. The mother of my children. I still love her."

 _Love._ He knew it wasn't a word he often said around his daughters in a positive way. It was a weakness and he drilled that into them. Love made you make mistakes, made you careless. Love was what made Paula take a bullet for him. Love is why he was here, exposed and with no backup, risking capture.

Sighing, Lawrence reached into his pocket – Artemis tensed momentarily, and God it bothered him so much that his own baby girl couldn't trust him at the most basic level – and pulled out a nondescript burner phone.

"It's a secure line. Something for me to able to reach you on, and vice versa. I understand you can't really risk being seen with a known criminal." He explained, handing her the phone. Artemis hesitated for a second but took the phone from her father. She stared at it for a couple of seconds, wondering how many different bugs were installed on it.

Lawrence raised his eyebrow, reading his daughter's mind. "You can have your friends take it apart for all I care. I didn't put any bugs on it. It's completely untraceable, both ways, so you and the junior justice league won't be able to trace me either."

"I think I'll do that. Assuming I don't toss it in the trash."

"Now don't go breaking an old man's heart," he quipped, his trademark wry grin on his face.

"Why not? How the hell do I know that this isn't some sick trap?"

"Because I love you, and you're hurting."

The words caught her more off guard than any of Black Canary's ninja counter-strikes ever had. She turned to look at her father – _her father,_ who never showed weakness, who had berated her and her sister countless times when he suspected they had gone easy on each other in sparring – and just stared. For the first time in a long time, she just started at the man in front of her.

There were more wrinkles on his face than she last remembered. His blonde hair looked a shade duller than she was used to, now that she could look at him outside the context of trying to bash his skull into the nearest hard surface. His eyes were still piercing blue, but they seemed…tired?

He felt her eyes on him, but he stared ahead at the pond. He wasn't lying earlier: He really wasn't good at this touchy-feely stuff, and he had to say what he had to say.

"I'm not a good person. Hell, I'm not good father. But damn it baby girl I'd like to be better. So please-" He hated saying please to anyone outside of his wife "-Please baby girl, just let me try."

 _Let me try_. Jade had quite literally laughed when he'd tried to plead with her to keep an open line of communication after Lian's birth, but she'd taken the phone. Rather than laugh, Artemis looked jarred instead, and when she spoke he understood why.

"Are you dying?"

"What? No!" _Of course_. Of course his daughter thought the only reason he was reaching out was because he was feeling his own mortality. And yes, sure, he was getting up there in age and finding out he was a grandfather only added to that sense, but no, he was not dying.

"Are you sure?" she asked, her voice the softest it had been since they started talking.

He laughed. "The fact that you can't believe I'd want to reach out unless I was dying is a testament to just how much I have fucked up as a father. Yes, baby girl, assuming that Lady Shiva or Slade didn't poison me without me knowing, I am very much not dying."

"So…you just want to what, talk?"

"Yes. Yes I would very much like that."

"About what?"

He ran his fingers through his hair, and just kind of shrugged. "I don't know baby girl, about whatever. Just not work stuff. Tell me about your fancy college, or about that new job you got as a literature tutor, or about whatever."

So she did. She talked about moving to Star City to live with Jade & Roy and now Mom. About babysitting Lian, who had a concerning penchant for violence (he had noticed). About watching Jade make perfect pho one night but burn the easiest mac and cheese recipe the next. She talked about how college had been a whole new experience, especially since no one else in her family had gone to one. She didn't mention that she hadn't gone back since Wally had died, but he didn't push. She talked about taking up swimming again, even though she hated the thought of drowning.

Ultimately, they spent the rest of the afternoon talking, until the sun was starting to set and the other park-goers had scattered on home.

After they had both been watching the sunset for a while, Artemis stood up, trying and failing to hide how awkward she felt. "It's getting late, I better get going. This was…nice."

Lawrence remained seated, choosing to let her walk away first. "I would like to do this more often. Once your friends have checked over that phone, I'd appreciate it if you'd ring me."

Artemis nodded and turn to walk away, but looked back first to ask "You're not going to give up the life, are you?"

"Are you?" was the only response from her father.

She sighed. "We can talk for days Dad, but it won't mean anything if you don't make changes. Jade made the changes she needed to."

"I have a timeline baby girl. Have to be thinking of retirement at my age and all, but I don't want to make promises I can't keep baby girl."

She sighed again, clearly drained of the energy needed to start this argument. Instead, she just shook her head and continued to walk away.

"I love you Artemis."

There was a slight hitch in her step at his words, but she didn't turn back. She muttered something back when she was almost out of earshot.

Basking in the glow of the sunset, he could almost imagine she had said "Love you too Dad."

**Author's Note:**

> Not sure if I made Artemis OOC. I know I definitely made Lawrence OOC because he is always an asshat in YJ.


End file.
